Bridge

Keep your eye on the ball

Opening lead — king of diamonds.

Even the most sharp-eyed declarer sometimes falls victim to a blind spot, missing a simple play that would ordinarily not escape his field of vision.

Consider this deal where South won the diamond lead, drew three rounds of trump and finessed the queen of hearts, losing to the king. South ruffed the diamond return and finessed the nine of hearts, which also lost. He then ruffed East’s diamond return with his last trump.

After playing a heart to the ace, declarer finessed the ten of clubs, losing to the queen. West led another diamond, forcing dummy to ruff, and then scored the last two tricks with the ace of clubs and a diamond. So the outcome was that South went down two!

However, declarer should have made the contract. All he had to do after winning the diamond lead and drawing trump was to tackle clubs instead of hearts by leading the king of clubs at trick five. In the actual deal, West wins with the ace and can do no better than return a heart. Declarer finesses the queen, losing to the king, and East returns a diamond.

South ruffs and leads a low club, forcing West to win either this club or the next one. It then does not matter what West returns. If he leads another heart, declarer takes dummy’s ace, ruffs a diamond, discards dummy’s nine of hearts on his fourth club and so makes 10 tricks.

Declarer should not have allowed the temptation of the heart and club finesses to cloud his vision. He should have proceeded directly towards the goal of making ten tricks just as though he had never heard of a finesse.